Recording Multiple Audio Streams in Protools 10

[tomboggan]

All



I am building a DAW and want to utilize Protools 10. I want to Record 16 audio streams with Protools 10. Channel 1 & 2 being a stereo pair, Channel 3 & 4 being a channel pair and so forth through Channel 15 and Channel 16.

Q1). While recording on all 16 Channels, can channels 1 & 2 be stopped and started while the other channels continue recording.

Q2). Does Protools 10 write to Disk as the recording is in progress or does it write to Disk after all recording is stopped.

Q3). I want to write Channel 1 & Channel 2 to a single MP3 File and Channel 3 and Channel 4 to a single MP3 File and so forth through Channel 15 and Channel 16. For a total of 8 Individual MP3 Files. Can Protools process each channel pair at the same time and write them to individual MP3 files.

thanks in advance

[dstryrwiz]

Originally Posted by tomboggan

Q3). I want to write Channel 1 & Channel 2 to a single MP3 File and Channel 3 and Channel 4 to a single MP3 File and so forth through Channel 15 and Channel 16. For a total of 8 Individual MP3 Files. Can Protools process each channel pair at the same time and write them to individual MP3 files.

Yes and no. The feature you're referring to is something called TrackPunch and is available on Pro Tools HD 10 and Pro Tools 10 with the Complete Production Toolkit, so it's not exactly a standard feature, but you can get it.

Originally Posted by tomboggan

Q2). Does Protools 10 write to Disk as the recording is in progress or does it write to Disk after all recording is stopped.

I believe it writes to disk as it records, but I may be wrong. That's how it used to work as far as I'm aware, however they redesigned how Pro Tools works with the drives, so this may be changed, however I sort of doubt it.

Originally Posted by tomboggan

Q3). I want to write Channel 1 & Channel 2 to a single MP3 File and Channel 3 and Channel 4 to a single MP3 File and so forth through Channel 15 and Channel 16. For a total of 8 Individual MP3 Files. Can Protools process each channel pair at the same time and write them to individual MP3 files.

I hope you mean to WAV files... MP3 files are highly compressed and terrible to work with. As for if you want to have it set up as a stereo file for each pair of channels, then yes, that is easy to do. All you do is create 8 stereo tracks, then set the input on the first track to channels 1 and 2, then the inputs for the second track to channels 3 and 4, and so on. Pro Tools in the past has preferred to work in a multiple mono format, and now it can work with stereo interleaved, however I'm unsure of the advantage of one over the other currently, although I believe recording to multiple mono is probably still preferred at this time. I believe this is what you were asking about, but please clarify if you mean you want 8 stereo tracks to work with, or if you want to be able to export 8 stereo tracks from the program after recording as well, and specify if that is the case if you want it exported in stereo interleaved WAV format or stereo interleaved MP3.

I hope this clears up your questions a bit, but let me know if you're confused about any of it.